Equipment grants signal new university-IBM collaborations

STANFORD -- A $1.4 million grant to Stanford researchers of computers,
workstations and equipment is part of a new emphasis by IBM Corporation on
selected partnerships with universities for research of specific interest to
the company.

IBM is focusing $20 million in grants on a limited number of U.S.
universities, which so far include Penn State, Purdue, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of
California-Los Angeles, the University of Minnesota and the University of
Texas-Austin.

"This is a new approach to university-industry collaborations," said
Charles Kruger, Stanford dean of research. "It involves an active interaction
between researchers on both sides. We welcome that. This is a perfect time in
the nation's history to find ways to work with industry that are compatible
with the mission of a university."

Scientists in seven Stanford research programs are now unpacking such
goodies as a powerful new $722,000 SP1 parallel processing supercomputer that
will speed researchers' work on the architecture and software of the next
generation of parallel supercomputers. Also in the works is a portable tablet
computer that could help doctors make more accurate notes at the hospital
bedside.

Grants from IBM to universities are hardly new. "Big Blue" is by far the
largest corporate donor to Stanford, with $42 million in grants to research
projects, professors and students over the years. What is new is the tighter
focus.

"As in the past, IBM's goal is to support science and engineering
education and forge links with academia," said IBM Vice President of Science
and Technology James C. McGroddy, who originated the idea of targeted
equipment grants to universities. "However, IBM is now more closely matching
its donations to its research and development agenda, in particular to foster
computational partnerships to develop simulation modeling and engineering
applications. We have given these grants to Stanford in view of its
outstanding research projects of significant interest to the company's
research community."

The grant was formally announced at a luncheon Oct. 13 for research grant
award winners from IBM and Stanford. Provost Condoleezza Rice and Dean of
Research Charles Kruger represented Stanford, and IBM was represented by Yuri
Matisoo, director of the Almaden Research Center; Dean Eastman, research
division vice president for physical sciences and technology; and V.
Sadagopan, manager of the Stanford-IBM shared university research program.

In a briefing before the luncheon, Sadagopan said there are three unique
aspects to the new shared university research programs.

One is a new IBM emphasis on technical computing, with the introduction
of the SP1 parallel processor. The grant recipients will use state-of-the-art
equipment to advance the state of the art of scientific and industrial
computing. A second aspect is a mentoring program that identifies promising
undergraduate and graduate students to be guided by both university and IBM
mentors.

A third emphasis is on projects where IBM and Stanford researchers can
work together, tackling different aspects of the same problem. Kruger said
that this program preserves the university's principles that the intellectual
direction of research must come from the faculty and that the results should
be open to all. In addition, it stimulates interaction between participating
Stanford faculty members and IBM researchers who have been specifically
identified as "links" to each project.

The research projects chosen to receive equipment are continuing,
multi-year programs to develop new technologies. Most have some federal
funding and support from more than one industrial partner. Robert Dutton,
professor of electrical engineering and research director of the Center for
Integrated Systems, said collaborations like this already have led to real
technology transfer, with Stanford- devised systems in use in a competitive
marketplace.

Pat Devaney, associate dean of research, said the equipment grants were
remarkable for the speed with which decisions were made - a matter of months
from the time that IBM asked its researchers to target fruitful
collaborations with universities, then called for research proposals and
decided which equipment requests would be granted. "Compare that with up to a
year to complete the paperwork and negotiations for most proposals," Devaney
said.

Most of the grants, which include equipment and some cash for software
and personnel support, were given to members of the Computer Science
Department and the Center for Integrated Systems. Devaney said the office of
the Dean of Research will work with members of other departments to suggest
other projects for a possible second round of equipment grants. She said
IBM's call for new proposals may come as early as January.

These Stanford projects received equipment in the first round:

The Center for Integrated Systems received the SP1, IBM's first major
commercial version of a parallel processor, a set of powerful computers
linked together by scalable software to do massive computing tasks. Robert
Dutton will use the SP1 for his "virtual factory," solving difficult design
problems to speed up integrated circuit development. He expects the SP1 to
perform an order of magnitude faster than his previous parallel processor.
"This machine will be a real engine for statistical analysis," he said.

With the SP1, James Harris, professor of electrical engineering, will
test other uses of parallel supercomputing, including a new type of quantum
device that may lead to single-electron electronics. Monica Lam, assistant
professor of computer science, will use the SP1 to expand her work on
languages and compilers, aiming to build a single programming system that can
be used on many different parallel architectures.

IBM researchers sharing data about work with the SP1 will include Dan
Fleming for Dutton's project; Maurizio Arienzo and John Crow, linked with
Harris; and Fran Allen and Vivek Sarkar, linked with Lam.

Edward Shortliffe, professor of medicine, and Tom Rindfleisch, director
of the Knowledge Systems Lab, will test a tablet-sized, pen-based computer
with a wireless link to a central processor. They will attempt to turn the
dozens of pages of a patient's hospital chart into a computerized record that
doctors and nurses can update easily and call up instantly to make decisions
at bedside. The project's IBM link is Ifay Chang.

Computer science Professors Hector Garcia-Molina and Jeffrey Ullman
will use a network of IBM workstations and experimental stations in their
Tsimmis project. The next-generation information management system, Tsimmis
will allow a user to collect and manage information for sources as diverse as
computer knowledge bases, raw satellite images, newswire stories, electronic
mail and books. The project's IBM link is Ashok Chandra.

A virtual battlefield is the eventual aim of computer science Professor
David Cheriton's project. Thousands of participants at thousands of
simulators could practice "war," maneuvering tanks, guns and airships in real
time, each seeing his portion of the battle on a realistic simulator. Four
IBM RISC/6000 workstations with graphics capabilities will help Cheriton's
group work out some of the basic principles of such a distributed interactive
simulation. They will consult with IBM's Ashok Chandra.

Computer science Professor Terry Winograd will expand his human-computer
interaction research to IBM RS-600 machines. "We will be doing research on
ways that people can use advanced graphics capabilities to interface
large-scale information networks such as the Internet," he said. "We will
build experimental interfaces that would not have been possible on the
machines we had previously been using, because of the greater graphics and
multimedia capabilities of the RS600s."

He will work with IBM's Ted Selker.

-jb-

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